Acts 4:6

Acts 4:6. And Annas the high priest. The Rabbis maintain that the Sanhedrim existed in the time of Moses, and refer to the incidents related in Numbers 11 for its origin. Seventy elders were appointed in the wilderness to assist Moses in his task of judging the people. Tradition relates how this council continued in power until the captivity. It was remodelled by Ezra on the return. Its name, however, derived as it is from the Greek, points to a far later date to some period in their history after the ‘Law' came in contact with Greek thought and language.

The place of assembly for the Sanhedrim was a chamber in the temple, situated between the court of the Israelites and the court of the priests, and was called Gazith. Some forty years before the fall of the city, this sacred council ceased to sit in any of the courts of the temple, and removed to a building without the temple precincts. After the fall of the city, the Sanhedrim was allowed by the victorious Roman Government to hold its sittings at Japhneh. It was subsequently permanently removed to Tiberias. Some have supposed that when the power of life and death was taken from the Sanhedrists, they ceased to sit in the hall Gazith. The Sanhedrim was the supreme court in the Jewish nation. Its decrees apparently were respected beyond Palestine, for we read how Saul was provided with credentials from the Sanhedrim to the Jewish synagogues of Damascus, when he went to search out and imprison the Syrian followers of Jesus of Nazareth. Its powers embraced all matters, civil as well as religious. It tried accused persons, and its decisions admitted of no appeal. In the New Testament, the trials before the Sanhedrim of the Lord Jesus, Peter, John, Stephen, and Paul are related. Besides its criminal jurisdiction, this court was the supreme arbiter in all matters connected with religion.

The actual high priest at this time was Caiaphas; but Annas, his father-in-law, originally held this great dignity. The Idumean rulers, and after them the Roman Government, not un-frequently would arbitrarily depose the high priest, and could set up another in his room. But with the people the deposed functionary kept his title, and even still wore the high-priestly garments (see Bleek, who has a good note on this point in Matthew 2:4). In our Lord's trial the accused was taken to Annas first (see also

Luke 3:2), where Caiaphas is mentioned as ‘high priest,' but after Annas. He was perhaps the most influential person among the Jews at this time. Raised to the high-priestly dignity by Cyrenius, the governor of Syria, then deposed by Valerius Gratus, procurator of Judea, early in the reign of Tiberius, he still continued to exercise the chief power during the priesthood of his son-in-law Caiaphas a period of twelve years. Five of his sons were advanced to this high office during his lifetime.

And Caiaphas. He was nominally high priest, his father-in-law, Annas, exercising the real power from A.D. 24 to A.D. 36, and was deposed at the beginning of the reign of Caligula by Vitellius, then governer of Syria.

And John and Alexander. Nothing positively certain is known of these two. Lightfoot would identify John with Rabbi Johanan ben Zaccai, who is mentioned in the Talmud: after the fall of Jerusalem, he obtained permission from the Roman Government that the Sanhedrim might be settled at Japhneh. Alexander some consider identical with the brother of Philo the historian, and well known as alabarch or governor of the Egyptian Jews.